Yes I know Skylake is out but unless you want to spend an extra £180 - £200 for a CPU and then £80 on the motherboard, Haswell is still pretty darn good.
Looking for a replacement motherboard and noticed the deal from around 2 to 3 months ago has come down in price from £100+ to £85 w/free 120GB SSD and free delivery.
Seems an alright deal for a decent specced board.
Top comments
savermonkey
16 Feb 164#10
But Skylake is out
brilly to HankMcSpank
17 Feb 163#35
the irony of a guy not interested in such minute technicalities yet coming into this post and commenting on others lives isn't lost on me...
All comments (37)
gillms1
16 Feb 16#1
I saw this earlier too and was going to post! I'm looking to build a Hackintosh but went for a b-grade gigabit board instead - was very nearly tempted by this though!
M0nk3h to gillms1
16 Feb 16#3
My current Gigabyte board is due a replacement and have been put off after two failures but this isn't in the Buyer's Guide but the Z97-A is. I posted and apparently they should theoretically be compatible due to NIC and audio being the same.
Which Gigabyte board did you go for? I'm put off with the recent issues and thinking of using the MSI Gaming 5 as it's in there.
JimBobJr
16 Feb 16#2
Unless its the 6700k you are getting then your 2nd paragraph is true (even though i'd go for a 5820k (x99) for a couple quid more than a 6700k) you are wrong. Most skylake i5's are even cheaper than haswell (just search HUKD for i5 deals) and a decent board for skylake is £40+ so i dont see why haswell is still a thing unless its bought used
However this isn't saying the deal is bad, even though the SSD is very slow for one
gillms1
16 Feb 16#4
The gaming 5 looks decent too (check Amazon.de, they had a used one going for cheap! - €118 euros's I think). I went for a GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD3H-BK, came across a site doing a used one for £58 so thought why not - will wait and see if it's worth it, but it's on the recommended list! You looking to build a Hackintosh?
sparx1981
16 Feb 16#5
5960k is faster than a Skylake... Not a fanboy, just did some research earlier as looking to upgrade later in the year. Was going to go for 6700k but realised that the Haswell chip beats it by quite a bit in some benches. Gaming is pretty much the same though unless you have multiple GPUs
rev6 to sparx1981
17 Feb 16#17
Skylake has higher core performance though. Usually better for gaming.
mercutio98uk to sparx1981
17 Feb 16#20
I've picked yours out of the pro X99 platform comments as it's so sure of itself. I'm not picking on you though :smiley:
edit: and I DO note you've actually mentioned a point in closing which points in the direction of "the truth" (can't think of a better way of putting that, ignore words used, read the meaning).
X99 has 2 possible improvements over skylake.
1) 2 more cores. Hex core is useful if you are doing something more than gaming as those cores will likely get used. If you are gaming, they restrict the overall processor package as it's 2 cores of extra heat you don't need when overclocking and few/almost no games will use the 6 cores. "Per core" performance is generally MUCH more important or we'd all be using AMD chips.
2) More PCIe lanes. The X99 (and previous "pro" type chipsets) have more PCIe lanes. If you want to go with more than a pair of high end cards or want a pair of cards + high end NVMe/PCIe SSD's, the extra lanes are hugely important and will help performance a lot.
So in summary, if you are onlygaming and can't afford/don't want a tri-sli or dual-sli + high end SSD, the skylake platform is both slightly cheaper AND will likely net you slightly more performance overall (more per core performance available).
If you CAN afford tri-sli/dual+PCIe SSD OR are using the PC for "serious" work as well as gaming, the X99 based setup is better.
Deal wise, I'd agree with one of the earlier comments, skylake is generally as cheap as this. Haswell, if you can find it cheap is excellent, Ivybridge or sandybridge if you can find it (even) cheap(er) is also excellent. This as a full price offering isn't all that amazing. A 120GB ssd is worth about £30, that board is a better haswell one but it's not so amazing that a cheaper skylake setup wouldn't be worth getting instead.
M0nk3h
16 Feb 16#6
Gigabyte seems to be the go to for Hackintosh. My current machine is a Hackintosh and was the EASIEST one I've done. Everything worked out of the box, so you should have a smooth time running El Captian. Sadly after my two occurrences with bad boards, I'm put off going for the new Z97 series boards.
gillms1
16 Feb 16#7
Which boards caused you problems? Might be coming to you for advice! :wink:
M0nk3h
16 Feb 16#8
Haha, feel free and I'll help best I can :wink:
I had an AMD AM3+ board where the onboard sound chip had gone, had to RMA and refund and now my current Intel board (Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3) has this weird restart bug where it'll shut down then instantly start back up. I've troubleshooted through all possible option but alas, a motherboard replacement is imminent. A friend with the equivalent chipset on the AMD side (same Gigabyte board) had the exact same issue and he ended up just replacing it for a MSI gaming board, alas no problem.
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Opening post
Yes I know Skylake is out but unless you want to spend an extra £180 - £200 for a CPU and then £80 on the motherboard, Haswell is still pretty darn good.
Looking for a replacement motherboard and noticed the deal from around 2 to 3 months ago has come down in price from £100+ to £85 w/free 120GB SSD and free delivery.
Seems an alright deal for a decent specced board.
Top comments
All comments (37)
Which Gigabyte board did you go for? I'm put off with the recent issues and thinking of using the MSI Gaming 5 as it's in there.
However this isn't saying the deal is bad, even though the SSD is very slow for one
edit: and I DO note you've actually mentioned a point in closing which points in the direction of "the truth" (can't think of a better way of putting that, ignore words used, read the meaning).
X99 has 2 possible improvements over skylake.
1) 2 more cores. Hex core is useful if you are doing something more than gaming as those cores will likely get used. If you are gaming, they restrict the overall processor package as it's 2 cores of extra heat you don't need when overclocking and few/almost no games will use the 6 cores. "Per core" performance is generally MUCH more important or we'd all be using AMD chips.
2) More PCIe lanes. The X99 (and previous "pro" type chipsets) have more PCIe lanes. If you want to go with more than a pair of high end cards or want a pair of cards + high end NVMe/PCIe SSD's, the extra lanes are hugely important and will help performance a lot.
So in summary, if you are onlygaming and can't afford/don't want a tri-sli or dual-sli + high end SSD, the skylake platform is both slightly cheaper AND will likely net you slightly more performance overall (more per core performance available).
If you CAN afford tri-sli/dual+PCIe SSD OR are using the PC for "serious" work as well as gaming, the X99 based setup is better.
Deal wise, I'd agree with one of the earlier comments, skylake is generally as cheap as this. Haswell, if you can find it cheap is excellent, Ivybridge or sandybridge if you can find it (even) cheap(er) is also excellent. This as a full price offering isn't all that amazing. A 120GB ssd is worth about £30, that board is a better haswell one but it's not so amazing that a cheaper skylake setup wouldn't be worth getting instead.
I had an AMD AM3+ board where the onboard sound chip had gone, had to RMA and refund and now my current Intel board (Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3) has this weird restart bug where it'll shut down then instantly start back up. I've troubleshooted through all possible option but alas, a motherboard replacement is imminent. A friend with the equivalent chipset on the AMD side (same Gigabyte board) had the exact same issue and he ended up just replacing it for a MSI gaming board, alas no problem.
It's now put me off going back to Gigabyte.