Where to invest in my current system

[hatebreeder]

So originally i had a thread to review parts i had selected for a new upgrade however on multiple sites i am being told i am wasting my money. So i started this to list my entire system and get input on if there are any places i could get some performance increase or invest money that would be worth it. I primarily play FPS games and do some photoshop. Please, any input is appreciated. I was so ready to hit the button my last cart however it appears i would have blown a bunch of money for nothing. HEEEELLLPP!!!!

CPU: Intel Core i7-940 Bloomfield 2.93GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601940

Mobo: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

Ram: 2 x CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
12GB total

GPU: 2 x GIGABYTE GV-R697OC-2GD Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 in crossfire

PSU: Corsair 1k watt modular

Boot/Primary games drive: Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F120GBGT-BK 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Storage: 2 WD Velociraptor 150gb in raid 0

Case: Antec 1200 V3

Keyboard: razer black widow mechanical

Mouse: Logitech G9

Monitor: just ordered asus 120hz 27"

Headset: Plantronics dsp 500

 

[Kindredsouls]

What is your budget?

 

[hatebreeder]

its flexible depending. I'm not looking to dump 2K into this system.

 

[JMer806]

Easiest upgrade would be just to get a 7970, which would probably outperform your Xfired cards. After that you could get a new MOBO, CPU, and RAM.

If you decide to go that route, I'd get an i5 3570k, an Asus or Gigabyte Z77 (I have the Asus P8Z77-V), and 2x4GB of Corsair or G.Skill RAM.

 

[Praxeology]

You build is solid. Whatever you do, don't touch your graphics cards as they are good for the next 2 years minimum. Make sure you have a decent oc on those cards through CCC though, otherwise they're not using their potentional xD. As far as upgrades it really is simple. For a good solid upgrade you need 2 parts really, you'll have to downgrade to 8gigs of ram which is fine unless you are running rendering software and even then it isn't too bad.

Mobo

CPU

Ranked in lol just started i'll prove reasoning in a sec

 

[hatebreeder]

You build is solid. Whatever you do, don't touch your graphics cards as they are good for the next 2 years minimum. Make sure you have a decent oc on those cards through CCC though, otherwise they're not using their potentional xD. As far as upgrades it really is simple. For a good solid upgrade you need 2 parts really, you'll have to downgrade to 8gigs of ram which is fine unless you are running rendering software and even then it isn't too bad.

Mobo

CPU

Ranked in lol just started i'll prove reasoning in a sec

If i got that 3820 and the new mobo what kind of performance increase am i looking at?

Also, my GPU's are running stock. do you think i really need to OC them?

 

[Praxeology]

If i got that 3820 and the new mobo what kind of performance increase am i looking at?

Also, my GPU's are running stock. do you think i really need to OC them?

Trying to gank as amumu and make sure someone doesn't come and say GO Z77 GTX 690 lol. I am not sure I will need to find benchmarks to give you accurate estimations. Let me finish this! I'd guess conservatively and say 15. Yes I think you should OC them they are meant to be OC.

 

[Kindredsouls]

Depending how much Photoshop you're doing would weigh a lot on which CPU you should get in my opinion. If you're doing a fair amount, or a lot I'd say go with a Core i7 3770k (3770 for no overclocking) that will give you quad core with hyper threading. If you only do a small amount of Photoshop I'd scale back to a Core i5 3570k or 2500k depending on your taste for over clocking (2500k overclocks better). If you don't want to do any overclocking then a plain 3570.


I'm not as knowledgeable when it comes to motherboards, but any of those cpus I listed will work on a socket LGA 1155 motherboard. What motherboard you get all depends on what you want to do. If you want to do overclocking then a Z77 boards are more geared for that, but may cost a little more.


You'll need new ram. I think most people will agree somewhere between DDR3 1333 and 1600 is the sweet spot. I personally like Corsair, but I do see a lot of Mushkin users. RAM is cheap, I'd recommend 16 GB. 8 GB is the sweet spot right now but 16 GB will give you some future proofing and Photoshop may enjoy the extra room.


Your Power Supply is good, more then enough power especially if you want to continue using crossfire or SLI.


I have that exact same SSD. Certainly great for a system drive. Up to you if you want more space or not. I did upgrade to this one recently and I'm loving it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233222


I'm not a big fan of using RAID 0 for storage, just because if one dies you lose everything. I'd suggest at least a 1 TB drive for storing files. Something like this is nice:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533


Not sure what you want to do about the graphics cards. Could reuse them or upgrade. I know AMD is releasing the 8000 series in the next few months. May want to wait for that?

 

[hatebreeder]

Depending how much Photoshop you're doing would weigh a lot on which CPU you should get in my opinion. If you're doing a fair amount, or a lot I'd say go with a Core i7 3770k (3770 for no overclocking) that will give you quad core with hyper threading. If you only do a small amount of Photoshop I'd scale back to a Core i5 3570k or 2500k depending on your taste for over clocking (2500k overclocks better). If you don't want to do any overclocking then a plain 3570.


I'm not as knowledgeable when it comes to motherboards, but any of those cpus I listed will work on a socket LGA 1155 motherboard. What motherboard you get all depends on what you want to do. If you want to do overclocking then a Z77 boards are more geared for that, but may cost a little more.


You'll need new ram. I think most people will agree somewhere between DDR3 1333 and 1600 is the sweet spot. I personally like Corsair, but I do see a lot of Mushkin users. RAM is cheap, I'd recommend 16 GB. 8 GB is the sweet spot right now but 16 GB will give you some future proofing and Photoshop may enjoy the extra room.


Your Power Supply is good, more then enough power especially if you want to continue using crossfire or SLI.


I have that exact same SSD. Certainly great for a system drive. Up to you if you want more space or not. I did upgrade to this one recently and I'm loving it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233222

I've got a 1TB mybook external that i back everything up on weekly.




I'm not a big fan of using RAID 0 for storage, just because if one dies you lose everything. I'd suggest at least a 1 TB drive for storing files. Something like this is nice:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533


Not sure what you want to do about the graphics cards. Could reuse them or upgrade. I know AMD is releasing the 8000 series in the next few months. May want to wait for that?

I do a bit of photoshop, not a lot at all. Mostly gaming. I am content with my GPU's without oc currently. You think that upgrading to a higher end 4c i7 would get me a noticeable increase in performance though?

 

[hatebreeder]

Trying to gank as amumu and make sure someone doesn't come and say GO Z77 GTX 690 lol. I am not sure I will need to find benchmarks to give you accurate estimations. Let me finish this! I'd guess conservatively and say 15. Yes I think you should OC them they are meant to be OC.

THanks A Lot. I really appreciate the help. and please let me know what you find. How easy is it to OC these gpu's?

Also, it sounds like you are recommending a new cpu/board/ram am i wrong?

I am confused cause in my other thread people were saying its a waste however in this one it seems like the consensus is to oc my cards if i do anything with my gpus and get a new board/chip/ram.

right?

 

[Kindredsouls]

I do a bit of photoshop, not a lot at all. Mostly gaming. I am content with my GPU's without oc currently. You think that upgrading to a higher end 4c i7 would get me a noticeable increase in performance though?

Not really. Look at the article on Tom's I have linked below for you. Core i7 3770k is a great cpu, don't get me wrong. It's just not cost effective. At least, according to Tom's.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html


Big difference between the 3570k and the 3770k is hyper threading. Photoshop would see some benefit from 4 physical cores and 4 virtual cores (hyper threading). Most games only use 2 cores. Some do use 4. Off hand, I'm not aware of any games that will take advantage of hyper threading, nothing noticeable anyway (I'm welcome to hearing anyone shed some light on that topic). Anyway, everything I've read says games are using 2-4 cores physical cores.

 

[Praxeology]

THanks A Lot. I really appreciate the help. and please let me know what you find. How easy is it to OC these gpu's?

Also, it sounds like you are recommending a new cpu/board/ram am i wrong?

I am confused cause in my other thread people were saying its a waste however in this one it seems like the consensus is to oc my cards if i do anything with my gpus and get a new board/chip/ram.

right?

Ok, I am recommending a new cpu/board and your current ram works fine on the new board. Problem is you have a tripple channel set up, and to make quad channel work on the new board with a 3820 you would have to bump down to 8GB, 4x2GB of your Corsair Dominator. As far as the cards go, I always say OC the cards through the CCC software or any software really. As an example I have the 6870 XFX 2GB edition. Stock is 900 core, 1050 memory, I did a very easy, stable OC to 940 core, 1125 memory. That was done by 10mhz increases for core, and 25 for memory per stable pass. I used skyrim with 2k texture mods and every other mod I had at max settings. Long story short, I went to 950 core, and it crashed, backed down to 940 core and bingo, I went to 1150 memory@940 core and it crashed and backed down by 5 mhz on memory until it stopped crashing. Took a while as I tested game for about an hour or longer, depending on what I was doing in skyrim at the time lol, before declaring it a pass and juicing it up/down. Now I am left with a 5-10 fps gain from a simple OC that has been stable on everything I run it at. Don't mess with stability test programs as they only blow your time. They will say stable and you'll crash after 1 minute of gameplay testing, or so has been my experience. Do this with your cards to get their peek, and you're set.

Now most people in here are going to recommend a z77 build running either the i5k edition, or the i7k edition. Its an old chip-set on an even older socket. Do not do this as it is a complete waste of money to invest in old tech. Intel's new socket is 2011, that's what you want to future proof yourself on. Your title is "Where to invest in my current system." My answer is the Z79 + 2011 + i7 3820. It will set you up for ivy-e and even if it didn't it's the better buy for the future as 1155 is just old old old. Both processors, assuming you went with the 1155 i7, are 300$ and the mobo can vary but at 230 for 2011, it is very reasonable. As I said, OC those cards for their optimal levels, assuming they aren't overheating obviously, I am not sure if you're cards have 2 fan cooling systems, my xfx only has 1 and it gets 75C in long gaming sessions with OC. 75 is alright though they are rated for 105. Anything over 85 though and you want to start thinking about better cooling because that is quite stressful on the silicone xD. Alright, benchmarks. What will this upgrade do for ya. Well, I don't know but I know it will be an improvement! There are no benchmarks comparing the first gen i7s with current gen. I can show you some old numbers with sigh... and speculate that on a gen 3 i7 the numbers would be better. That's about it. Ultimately, it's your choice.

Performance: i7 3770k with a z77 = godly. However, it is old tech, and does not have a path forward.

Performance: i7 3820 with a z79 = godly amazing xD. Single threading performance is not as good as the ivy above, but pretty close. It is sandy so that is to be expected.
Does very well fps wise these things are equal, but will cost you 50-80$ more if you buy a 150-200$ z77 board.

Mobo

CPU

You know my recommendation, gl, and make the right choice!

 

[Kindredsouls]

Ok, I am recommending a new cpu/board and your current ram works fine on the new board. Problem is you have a tripple channel set up, and to make quad channel work on the new board with a 3820 you would have to bump down to 8GB, 4x2GB of your Corsair Dominator. As far as the cards go, I always say OC the cards through the CCC software or any software really. As an example I have the 6870 XFX 2GB edition. Stock is 900 core, 1050 memory, I did a very easy, stable OC to 940 core, 1125 memory. That was done by 10mhz increases for core, and 25 for memory per stable pass. I used skyrim with 2k texture mods and every other mod I had at max settings. Long story short, I went to 950 core, and it crashed, backed down to 940 core and bingo, I went to 1150 memory@940 core and it crashed and backed down by 5 mhz on memory until it stopped crashing. Took a while as I tested game for about an hour or longer, depending on what I was doing in skyrim at the time lol, before declaring it a pass and juicing it up/down. Now I am left with a 5-10 fps gain from a simple OC that has been stable on everything I run it at. Don't mess with stability test programs as they only blow your time. They will say stable and you'll crash after 1 minute of gameplay testing, or so has been my experience. Do this with your cards to get their peek, and you're set.

Now most people in here are going to recommend a z77 build running either the i5k edition, or the i7k edition. Its an old chip-set on an even older socket. Do not do this as it is a complete waste of money to invest in old tech. Intel's new socket is 2011, that's what you want to future proof yourself on. Your title is "Where to invest in my current system." My answer is the Z79 + 2011 + i7 3820. It will set you up for ivy-e and even if it didn't it's the better buy for the future as 1155 is just old old old. Both processors, assuming you went with the 1155 i7, are 300$ and the mobo can vary but at 230 for 2011, it is very reasonable. As I said, OC those cards for their optimal levels, assuming they aren't overheating obviously, I am not sure if you're cards have 2 fan cooling systems, my xfx only has 1 and it gets 75C in long gaming sessions with OC. 75 is alright though they are rated for 105. Anything over 85 though and you want to start thinking about better cooling because that is quite stressful on the silicone xD. Alright, benchmarks. What will this upgrade do for ya. Well, I don't know but I know it will be an improvement! There are no benchmarks comparing the first gen i7s with current gen. I can show you some old numbers with sigh... and speculate that on a gen 3 i7 the numbers would be better. That's about it. Ultimately, it's your choice.

Performance: i7 3770k with a z77 = godly. However, it is old tech, and does not have a path forward.

Performance: i7 3820 with a z79 = godly amazing xD. Single threading performance is not as good as the ivy above, but pretty close. It is sandy so that is to be expected.
Does very well fps wise these things are equal, but will cost you 50-80$ more if you buy a 150-200$ z77 board.

Mobo

CPU

You know my recommendation, gl, and make the right choice!

Well put Praxeology.

 

[hatebreeder]

Ok, I am recommending a new cpu/board and your current ram works fine on the new board. Problem is you have a tripple channel set up, and to make quad channel work on the new board with a 3820 you would have to bump down to 8GB, 4x2GB of your Corsair Dominator. As far as the cards go, I always say OC the cards through the CCC software or any software really. As an example I have the 6870 XFX 2GB edition. Stock is 900 core, 1050 memory, I did a very easy, stable OC to 940 core, 1125 memory. That was done by 10mhz increases for core, and 25 for memory per stable pass. I used skyrim with 2k texture mods and every other mod I had at max settings. Long story short, I went to 950 core, and it crashed, backed down to 940 core and bingo, I went to 1150 memory@940 core and it crashed and backed down by 5 mhz on memory until it stopped crashing. Took a while as I tested game for about an hour or longer, depending on what I was doing in skyrim at the time lol, before declaring it a pass and juicing it up/down. Now I am left with a 5-10 fps gain from a simple OC that has been stable on everything I run it at. Don't mess with stability test programs as they only blow your time. They will say stable and you'll crash after 1 minute of gameplay testing, or so has been my experience. Do this with your cards to get their peek, and you're set.

Now most people in here are going to recommend a z77 build running either the i5k edition, or the i7k edition. Its an old chip-set on an even older socket. Do not do this as it is a complete waste of money to invest in old tech. Intel's new socket is 2011, that's what you want to future proof yourself on. Your title is "Where to invest in my current system." My answer is the Z79 + 2011 + i7 3820. It will set you up for ivy-e and even if it didn't it's the better buy for the future as 1155 is just old old old. Both processors, assuming you went with the 1155 i7, are 300$ and the mobo can vary but at 230 for 2011, it is very reasonable. As I said, OC those cards for their optimal levels, assuming they aren't overheating obviously, I am not sure if you're cards have 2 fan cooling systems, my xfx only has 1 and it gets 75C in long gaming sessions with OC. 75 is alright though they are rated for 105. Anything over 85 though and you want to start thinking about better cooling because that is quite stressful on the silicone xD. Alright, benchmarks. What will this upgrade do for ya. Well, I don't know but I know it will be an improvement! There are no benchmarks comparing the first gen i7s with current gen. I can show you some old numbers with sigh... and speculate that on a gen 3 i7 the numbers would be better. That's about it. Ultimately, it's your choice.

Performance: i7 3770k with a z77 = godly. However, it is old tech, and does not have a path forward.

Performance: i7 3820 with a z79 = godly amazing xD. Single threading performance is not as good as the ivy above, but pretty close. It is sandy so that is to be expected.
Does very well fps wise these things are equal, but will cost you 50-80$ more if you buy a 150-200$ z77 board.

Mobo

CPU

You know my recommendation, gl, and make the right choice!

Thanks! with my current GPU's and my just arrived 120hz monitor i am getting between 120-200fps at all times so i think i am straight for the GPUs for now. I am tempted to get the 3820 and new mobo. Still unsure. Ugh... first world problems.

 

[Praxeology]

Thanks! with my current GPU's and my just arrived 120hz monitor i am getting between 120-200fps at all times so i think i am straight for the GPUs for now. I am tempted to get the 3820 and new mobo. Still unsure. Ugh... first world problems.

If anything they aren't going anywhere. You can always just wait. But if you do upgrade my only is STAY AWAY from 1155. In your position with your setup, I wouldn't upgrade though tbh. As you say you're frames are gg for what you play.

 

[hatebreeder]

If anything they aren't going anywhere. You can always just wait. But if you do upgrade my only is STAY AWAY from 1155. In your position with your setup, I wouldn't upgrade though tbh. As you say you're frames are gg for what you play.

maybe ill just get a new case for now. I want to put some money into my system. I think my board chip and ram are fine for now i guess. I have one bad dimm slot on my board that required me to reseed the stick of ram in it periodically and its annoying also i have no usb3. Other than that i'm content with it i just am always interested in any type of performance increase i can get while gaming.

Any favorites for cases? I like my antec case however the amount of dust it gets on the fan grates is annoying.

 

[Kindredsouls]

maybe ill just get a new case for now. I want to put some money into my system. I think my board chip and ram are fine for now i guess. I have one bad dimm slot on my board that required me to reseed the stick of ram in it periodically and its annoying also i have no usb3. Other than that i'm content with it i just am always interested in any type of performance increase i can get while gaming.

Any favorites for cases? I like my antec case however the amount of dust it gets on the fan grates is annoying.

This is the case I'm using for my Rig:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119225


I've used other Cooler Master HAF cases in other builds for myself and friends. I like the HAF 932, and HAF 912. Also a great mid tower is the Cooler Master Storm Scout. I have used ThermalTek and Antec in the past and they're alright but my favorites always seem to end up being Cooler Master.

 

[Kindredsouls]

If anything they aren't going anywhere. You can always just wait. But if you do upgrade my only is STAY AWAY from 1155. In your position with your setup, I wouldn't upgrade though tbh. As you say you're frames are gg for what you play.

You do make a really good point Prax about the LGA 1155 getting old. I did recently build one, but I forgot I did that because I paid $180 for the i5 3570k and it came with a solid z77 motherboard on top of that. Was a Black Friday deal.

 

[JMer806]

Ok, I am recommending a new cpu/board and your current ram works fine on the new board. Problem is you have a tripple channel set up, and to make quad channel work on the new board with a 3820 you would have to bump down to 8GB, 4x2GB of your Corsair Dominator. As far as the cards go, I always say OC the cards through the CCC software or any software really. As an example I have the 6870 XFX 2GB edition. Stock is 900 core, 1050 memory, I did a very easy, stable OC to 940 core, 1125 memory. That was done by 10mhz increases for core, and 25 for memory per stable pass. I used skyrim with 2k texture mods and every other mod I had at max settings. Long story short, I went to 950 core, and it crashed, backed down to 940 core and bingo, I went to 1150 memory@940 core and it crashed and backed down by 5 mhz on memory until it stopped crashing. Took a while as I tested game for about an hour or longer, depending on what I was doing in skyrim at the time lol, before declaring it a pass and juicing it up/down. Now I am left with a 5-10 fps gain from a simple OC that has been stable on everything I run it at. Don't mess with stability test programs as they only blow your time. They will say stable and you'll crash after 1 minute of gameplay testing, or so has been my experience. Do this with your cards to get their peek, and you're set.

Now most people in here are going to recommend a z77 build running either the i5k edition, or the i7k edition. Its an old chip-set on an even older socket. Do not do this as it is a complete waste of money to invest in old tech. Intel's new socket is 2011, that's what you want to future proof yourself on. Your title is "Where to invest in my current system." My answer is the Z79 + 2011 + i7 3820. It will set you up for ivy-e and even if it didn't it's the better buy for the future as 1155 is just old old old. Both processors, assuming you went with the 1155 i7, are 300$ and the mobo can vary but at 230 for 2011, it is very reasonable. As I said, OC those cards for their optimal levels, assuming they aren't overheating obviously, I am not sure if you're cards have 2 fan cooling systems, my xfx only has 1 and it gets 75C in long gaming sessions with OC. 75 is alright though they are rated for 105. Anything over 85 though and you want to start thinking about better cooling because that is quite stressful on the silicone xD. Alright, benchmarks. What will this upgrade do for ya. Well, I don't know but I know it will be an improvement! There are no benchmarks comparing the first gen i7s with current gen. I can show you some old numbers with sigh... and speculate that on a gen 3 i7 the numbers would be better. That's about it. Ultimately, it's your choice.

Performance: i7 3770k with a z77 = godly. However, it is old tech, and does not have a path forward.

Performance: i7 3820 with a z79 = godly amazing xD. Single threading performance is not as good as the ivy above, but pretty close. It is sandy so that is to be expected.
Does very well fps wise these things are equal, but will cost you 50-80$ more if you buy a 150-200$ z77 board.

Mobo

CPU

You know my recommendation, gl, and make the right choice!

Prax I agree with you except about the 2011 socket. Haswell is going to be using socket 1150, not 2011, so I don't really see any reason to go 2011 as it's just as old-tech as 1155.

 

[Kindredsouls]

Yeah, I think JMer806 is right. Since you cannot get a LGA 1150 board and none of the current boards (LGA 1155 or 2011) will be Haswell compatible - you can't future proof.

After looking at what you have more closely, I think I would stick with what you have. I don't believe you're going to see a "significant" performance increase for the amount of money you'd be spending. If you're not happy with your computer case then go ahead and rebuild your current system into that. Case can be reused anyway. Sounds like the Haswell cpus will be coming out sometime between May and June of 2013.

 

[Praxeology]

Prax I agree with you except about the 2011 socket. Haswell is going to be using socket 1150, not 2011, so I don't really see any reason to go 2011 as it's just as old-tech as 1155.

That's news to me can you provide a source for me because I am lazy and since you brought it up. If this is indeed the case then 2011 is literally worthless. There are 3 processors for it, z79 has problems with pci3.0 and those 3 processors working on it also so there would literally be no point in 2011 which came out in 2011 so it isn't quite old tech. Which!!!... Begs the question, assuming you are right and nothing is going forward on 2011, which doesn't make any sense, why in the hell did the come out with 2011?


Edit: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1731717 I just did a little digging, I lied. All of this is rumor based, ivy-e could be on socket pineapples for all we know. As the rumor stands though ivy-e is coming out next year and haswell is even more of ghost on release date. Assuming these are right, I would still stand by my recommendation. 2011 has a good 5 years in it. If you are rocking a 940 you upgrade like me. This would be the better buy for you I think. But then again... Haswell nom nom. It comes down to this. Upgrade now for the better future proof build ie 2011 for only 50 bucks more with the right mobo pick. Or upgrade now for 1155/i5 build which has NO future. Option 3 of course is wait and see what's really going on here xD. But if you are going to upgrade 2011 is the way to go as you can get ivy-e if performance is decent enough to tide you over for haswall, if, when, and on what it actually comes out on.

Edit 2: The more I think about this the more it makes sense for haswell to come out on 2011. Why make another socket when they just released one? That just doesn't make good business sense. It's not like they needed to compete with AMD lol That fight is over, AMD is raping in the servers/apu market. So I wouldn't be surprised if rumors were just that, rumors.

Edit 3: Here is haswell demo in 2012 Intel Dev meetup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wthvk50F5g Making it smaller, less power requirements, and slapping in a viable gpu. Sounds like too much all at once and it is going to fail somewhere but then again it's intel. They seem to be wanting to smash the APU market, laptop, and tablet markets all at the same time. For desktop PCs, I am not sure what their products would be like and perform like. I truly thing 2011 is the way to go right now. I would love to see what mobo that haswell is running on. lol!

 

[Kindredsouls]

That's news to me can you provide a source for me because I am lazy and since you brought it up. If this is indeed the case then 2011 is literally worthless. There are 3 processors for it, z79 has problems with pci3.0 and those 3 processors working on it also so there would literally be no point in 2011 which came out in 2011 so it isn't quite old tech. Which!!!... Begs the question, assuming you are right and nothing is going forward on 2011, which doesn't make any sense, why in the hell did the come out with 2011?


Edit: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1731717 I just did a little digging, I lied. All of this is rumor based, ivy-e could be on socket pineapples for all we know. As the rumor stands though ivy-e is coming out next year and haswell is even more of ghost on release date. Assuming these are right, I would still stand by my recommendation. 2011 has a good 5 years in it. If you are rocking a 940 you upgrade like me. This would be the better buy for you I think. But then again... Haswell nom nom. It comes down to this. Upgrade now for the better future proof build ie 2011 for only 50 bucks more with the right mobo pick. Or upgrade now for 1155/i5 build which has NO future. Option 3 of course is wait and see what's really going on here xD. But if you are going to upgrade 2011 is the way to go as you can get ivy-e if performance is decent enough to tide you over for haswall, if, when, and on what it actually comes out on.

Edit 2: The more I think about this the more it makes sense for haswell to come out on 2011. Why make another socket when they just released one? That just doesn't make good business sense. It's not like they needed to compete with AMD lol That fight is over, AMD is raping in the servers/apu market. So I wouldn't be surprised if rumors were just that, rumors.

Edit 3: Here is haswell demo in 2012 Intel Dev meetup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wthvk50F5g Making it smaller, less power requirements, and slapping in a viable gpu. Sounds like too much all at once and it is going to fail somewhere but then again it's intel. They seem to be wanting to smash the APU market, laptop, and tablet markets all at the same time. For desktop PCs, I am not sure what their products would be like and perform like. I truly thing 2011 is the way to go right now. I would love to see what mobo that haswell is running on. lol!

This is one of the articles I found regarding Haswell. A few others I looked at and Wikipedia all seem to point at LGA 1150 being the new socket. The reasoning is the micro architecture changed too much to utlize socket 2011. They did take all the benefits that 2011 had over 1155 and added them into 1150.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2012/2012121301_Details_of_Haswell_desktop_CPU_lineup.html

Last paragraph of the article mentions the sockets. Granted its not straight from Intel's mouth but there is a developer's conference going on in Japan so I imagine there may be something released from them soon.

 

[Praxeology]

This is one of the articles I found regarding Haswell. A few others I looked at and Wikipedia all seem to point at LGA 1150 being the new socket. The reasoning is the micro architecture changed too much to utlize socket 2011. They did take all the benefits that 2011 had over 1155 and added them into 1150.

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2012/2012121301_Details_of_Haswell_desktop_CPU_lineup.html

Last paragraph of the article mentions the sockets. Granted its not straight from Intel's mouth but there is a developer's conference going on in Japan so I imagine there may be something released from them soon.

Ya after some more digging it will be on 1150 I think.

2011 is good for ivy-e but not for has. So if you are playing acceptable frames, wait for haswell before you jump into the 2011 socket would be the wisest thing to do. If you cant resist the purdy hardware though 2011 is best choice. I think that about /thread this up. Some good brain-stormin!

To the OP, if you want a really nice case that you will never need to upgrade, take a look at my wish list build case/psu/fans. This is the best you can get!

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=29297308

 

[JMer806]

I wouldn't say an i5 3570k on Z77 has no future. It's a great chip at a great price that can easily last several years. There aren't any chips or boards that will stay new for more than a year - if that long.

However since Haswell could be out as early as March, I'd agree that now is not the best time to upgrade to Ivy Bridge.

 

[nix327]

I would'nt change anything on that pc..in my opinion you got plenty of juice left for your purpose untill the next gen cpus gpus and everything are out..its won't be worth the money to upgrade to anything as of now.

here is a benchmark for the 6970cf
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/298

the i7 940 is plenty for light photoshop and gaming
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/46?vs=551