X99 5820K PCIe Lanes Question

CmdrJeffSinclair

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If I did 290X in Crossfire, I'd want PCIe 3.0 x16x16, but the 5820K can't support this because it only supports 28 lanes total and not 32?

Does that mean that the second GPU being forced into x8 would lose bandwidth? Is that what techies refer to as poor SLI/CF scaling?

If so, what kind of performance hit would I take not having both graphics cards in x16x16 like the 5930K can do? The 5930K is just too expensive. It'd make more sense to get a 980ti instead of 2x 290X's plus a 5930k
 
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technically yes but the fact is pci-e 3.0/2.0 cards arent saturating the pci-e at x8 so there would be no perceivable bottleneck.
at the very worst you would loose 1 fps because of the pci-e lane config.
the 980 ti is just a better buy. you wont need a 800w+ psu so you could spend the money on a better quality, higher tier lower, power unit.

for a gaming part the 5930k is overkill and will be for at least 5 more years due to the consoles. infact the whole i7 platform is a wase of money if all your doing is gaming

better to go for an i5 quad with hyperthreading (better to have and not need than need and not have) and a single gtx 980 ti and you have a perfectly decent 1080p (upto x3) setup or a single 1440p (x1) setup that would last...
technically yes but the fact is pci-e 3.0/2.0 cards arent saturating the pci-e at x8 so there would be no perceivable bottleneck.
at the very worst you would loose 1 fps because of the pci-e lane config.
the 980 ti is just a better buy. you wont need a 800w+ psu so you could spend the money on a better quality, higher tier lower, power unit.

for a gaming part the 5930k is overkill and will be for at least 5 more years due to the consoles. infact the whole i7 platform is a wase of money if all your doing is gaming

better to go for an i5 quad with hyperthreading (better to have and not need than need and not have) and a single gtx 980 ti and you have a perfectly decent 1080p (upto x3) setup or a single 1440p (x1) setup that would last 5 years+

you could probably build it for a good pinch under 1000
 
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CmdrJeffSinclair

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makes me wonder why people buy the 5930k at all. What about the difference between the 5820k running in x16x8 vs the 5930k running in x16x16?
 

CmdrJeffSinclair

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I had an i7-2600K and wasn't at all thrilled with it. I was thinking either a 5820k with 290x or a fx-6300 with 290x then upgrade later to something new in 1.5-2 years assuming I'd need more for plain 1080p gaming. Anything 45FPS and higher is great for me. 30fps gives me a headache but I can't see the difference between 45 and 60fps anyway.

Would a fx-6300 do me just fine max graphics? I saw here on Tom's and MaximumPC that a single 290X can get 50+ minimum fps in Witcher 3 on ultra (hairworks off obviously) which would be splendid for me. If I can last with a 290X and a 6300 for another 1/5 years then I can just change my mobo and cpu later on if needed then add a second 290X for CF for the remainder of this gen and still come up even for the price of a 5820k +980ti (which is $400 more and by then I would imagine something better would be out to stomp x99 anyway)

What do you say? I put this together, the parts that last at least 7 years are the best meanwhile other things that tend to die or get old I've gone light on with upgrade in mind
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/txPFnQ

I do not need:
monitor
keyboard
mouse
speakers
OS
hdd
 

Cristi72

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X99 is not a game-centric platform, especially when using the 5820K, which provides lower gaming experience than i7-4790K. It has some advantages only when going with the 5930K/5960K and 3-way/4-way CF or SLI, but such setups shines only for high resolutions (4K monitors or multiple monitor setups).
 
mate the 2600k was a perfectly decent cpu and is still a great option for gaming today, if you can find them 40+ cheaper than a 4770k.
it would have easily handled a gtx 970 and thats all you would have needed to add to the 2600 build to get 60+ fps in every game @1080p
 

CmdrJeffSinclair

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Yeah I had sold my old desktop with the 2x 2GB 6950's and 2600k and just been doing my laptop. Now that it's dead I want a desktop again since laptops haven't really gone anywhere in years. Desktops are better and amazingly cheaper anyway. I was planning on either going dirt cheap or high end just so long as I could get ultra/max graphics with 1080p but the difference between an i5-4440 and the 5820k with 16gb ddr4@3GHz was only $350 so I'm just going to go 5820k with a Cooler Master Nepton 280L or the 240M and do a 4.4GHz OC so this gen is smooth and next gen is smoked right out of the gate.
 

CmdrJeffSinclair

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I was thinking of that as well but then when this gen ends and the next rolls around, 1080p gaming will still be fine with a 290X most likely but the CPU would become the weakest link, and in that case I'd have to spend money again anyway for a new mobo and CPU. It just seems like no matter what I do I cannot protect myself from wasting money since I'm hopping into this gen at an awkward time between next year's dozen great games coming out, AMD's 300 series, the 980ti bringing 4K to a more modest price and here I am having to buy an entire computer from scratch. If this were a matter of upgrading from my Core 2 Duo to a i5-4440 then it'd be a no brainer to wait, but I don't want to upgrade in 2 years if it costs the same as buying x99 now. A 5820k will not be too little for the next next gen. There's just no way. I don't try to future proof but tech prices and consoles are holding games back for sure from becoming what they could be
 
mate look at my build...
i just added a gtx 970 last week to my i7 920 setup and it still scored decently on 3d mark.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7235208
i7 920 @3.3ghz, ddr3 1333, cas8.
im quite happy to put it up against a recent i5 setup with the same card. it may not win but its close enough to say its in the same race.
my build is nearly 6 years old now mate and it still rocks max settings on every game ive thrown at it.
so i wouldnt worry to much about buying a lower end i5.

fact is dx12 is gonna make cpu performance even less important as it will offload a lot of work that the cpu normally does to the gpu where it can be done more efficiently. so when it drops even old machines will get a performance bump.
 

CmdrJeffSinclair

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I'm surprised you put in a 970 despite the scandal nVidia tried to pull with the 3.5GB memory thing. What doesn't use 4GB now even at 1080p. GTA5 requires bare minimum of 3.3GB for max@1080p and specs say 4GB recommended.

Anyway, I'm glad to see a CPU is not as important these days but maxwell at the moment is useless since nothing is using dx12 and nothing will use it for at least another year. All the games I want come out 1st and 2nd quarter of 2016 and there's no way they'd have even support for dx12 that late in development. Chances are 2 years will pass before I feel the true need for an upgrade from the 290X.

I heard from recent sites talking about the R9 200 series getting a price drop when Fiji rolls out since it's a rebranding. If prices go up instead of down I'd channel my CPU money into a 980ti and call it a year (or 3) til 4K becomes more reasonable on projectors. I grew up on CPUs being the heart of everything, but I do admit it is finally sinking in that an i5 now then a CPU/Mobo upgrade at the end of this gen is also extremely reasonable.

My only fear is that old part go up in price not down and I may have to contend with upgrades like x99 being expensive still in 4-5 years since they are out of production and the only new CPUs/Mobos out for new gen stuff would be as expensive as x99 is now.

I have an 8 year old laptop I just retired so I know how great it is to keep an old computer alive, but it's also a big gamble since my laptop needs two 1GB 4850M's which would cost $800 (lol) plus a CPU upgrade (QX9300 $250). It's a joke for prices on old parts. So I'm starting from scratch but this time I'm contending with
1) Godly computer is $1260
2) !@# computer is $900
3) How much is that $300 worth to me in the long run? If it means working 3 more weeks and waiting to order then I'd just drop the extra money for whatever I think I need to stay in the game. A CPU/Mobo later might cost more than it does now and keeping in mind x99 is still 2.5 years old and still costs a lot. I don't wanna get stuck in this gen because the leap into the next next gen is as expensive as it is now, but at least I have no bills now lol

I am going to have to think this over long and hard while I save up anyway and see what money is worth saving and what might be worth the extra expenditure. Only I can answer that I guess but at least I now know I can smoke games for as little as $850 in case I'm pinched for dough in a few weeks when I choose to splurge
 

CmdrJeffSinclair

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by the way, your i7-920 and GTX 970 scored a little higher in fire strike 1.1 than my old i7-2600k and 2x 2GB 6950's in CF. That's crazy!
 

Bazzabat

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I like the result. Mine (at stock speeds) on a similar platform for comparison shows the difference a good overclock makes on the cpu :)

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5017508/fs/5081209

-Bone
 

i found it crippled performance in gta 5 mate. it was great till i extended the shadow distance. that 1 setting sent the card from a smooth 60 crashing down to 12-15 fps.

it could be the fact that the directx 11 feature set was tacked on as an after thought. but it showed me the 3.5 limit of the card and when it gets hit it really does show.

 


its not much of an oc mate. more like performance tuning as im using stock volts to run at 3.3ghz. i found 3.3 was perfect to get the best multi out of the ram so i could run it at 1333 exactly. @3.6 i got a better cpu score but a much worse ram bandwidth 1 so i balanced the 2 and hit a sweet spot in performance to power consumption.

@cjs
as for my firestrike score im not that surprised mate. the 2600k was a step up in clock speeds for the i5/i7 but the performance difference at the same speeds was near identical, (a 3%-4% bump at best).
which is what i was getting at earlier. intel cpu's haven't really progressed at all for the general user since the first gen core i3/i5/i7. yes things got faster but like for like performance hasnt changed very much at all.