Hi everyone. With the release of haswell, people seem disappointed but I wanted to get some help with my specific situation. I am decided between these two cpu and motherboard combos, price difference being 40 bucks. I want to overclock so some input on what would be better is what I am looking for. I know that motherboard choice is important to overclocking and features, though I don't plan to do much beyond gaming and maybe some heavy math computational stuff occasionally for my job.

Ivy Bridge

http://microcenter.com/product/388577/Core_i5_3570K_34GHz_Socket_LGA_1155_Boxed_Processor

http://microcenter.com/product/387629/Z77_Pro4-M_1155_mATX_Intel_Motherboard

Haswell

http://microcenter.com/product/413251/Core_i5_4670K_34GHz_Socket_LGA_1150_Boxed_Processor

http://microcenter.com/product/414948/Z87M_Extreme4_Socket_LGA_1150_mATX_Intel_Motherboard

So yeah, those are the prices, plus I get 40 bucks off for buying the CPU and motherboard together. Thanks guys.

Did you see Tested's comparison guide? http://www.tested.com/tech/pcs/455882-tested-intels-haswell-cpu-desktop/

True, I guess I see a boost in CPU intensive games. I am just wondering about the overclocking and the motherboards.

I routinely check out forums like overclock.net and hardforum.com. From what I've gather from other users, Intel allegedly chose certain Haswell CPU's to give to review sites that are much better at overclocking than what is representative of the launch batch of chips. People are claiming that Haswell produces more heat at both stock and overclocking voltages. The big improvement that Haswell has over Ivy Bridge is its IGP performance, which is irrelevant to gaming rigs unless you care about Lucid Virtu (which the Z77 board you listed has, but not the Z87 from what I've researched) and care about power consumption.

So what you're really deciding on is if you want to go with the Z77 or the Z87 board, which will dictate the CPU you go with. The Z87 has two PCI-e slots at x16, which is much better than what the Z77 is offering if you plan to go dual GPU at any time. Then there are the other small benefits like more USB 3.0 ports and an updated UEFI BIOS from Asrock. For these reasons I would suck up the worse overclocking of Haswell and it's higher price for a better mobo.

Clock for clock Haswell is quicker, has better power saving features and the chipset has a lot more sata 6gb/s ports. It's a better buy if you're buying now, just not a huge upgrade if you were already running Ivy.

I just installed a 4770K and it's pretty brutal, it's a shame intel have cheaped out on the TIM on these things under the heat spreader just like they did with Ivy... takes one hell of a cooling setup to do some decent overclocking.

not much difference between the two at all... NOT worth the upgrade if you have an IVY already.... in Real-World-Gaming the difference will be a couple frames if any at all...4th Gen intels are really meant for mobile devices because of their low power needs... for desktop gaming the difference is nothing... There is a reason why they are priced at almost the exact same price as Ivy, because there just is no performance gain. Personally think it was completely pointless releasing a new line of CPUs that doesn't improve on the last generation...

I would wait on a Haswell E 8-core CPU... to be releasing middle of next year.

http://www.techpowerup.com/185719/haswell-e-intels-first-8-core-desktop-processor-exposed.html

Most people disappointed with haswell are stuck in the 90s they believe every CPU gen should have 30% speed bump, kinda like they don't understand Moore's law.

As people point out, for desktop there is no need for update if you have ivy or sandy. If you buying new haswell is the best processor you can buy.

I do think a new CPU should boost more then what the haswells do over the Ivy bridge. The other little things the Haswell does better then the other CPUs just dont interest me personally, not for gaming sense at least. I just think its a money grab right now knowing they are releasing an 8 core (16 threaded) CPU in about a year, and they release the haswell, which is sort of pointless if you already have an Ivy, i mean just go by the price, the haswells are about the same price wise which should tell you right there, the performance gain is neglitable at best anyway... their absolutely amazing at the mobile device levels, ESPECIALLY for laptops, but if there is no real gain in performance, why release them? just stop flaffing about by making current gen CPUS just a tad better each time, and launch some real innovation CPUs finally.... I think we've all been waiting on Intel to release a proper 8-core CPU for what, 5 years? Even the first gen i7s have absolutely no problem maxing out games like crysis 3 and the witcher, so long as u have the graphics card and good amount of memory. Its amazing intel cpus are just simply that GOOD they haven't needed to bring out anymore more hardcore/innovative for quite a long ass time now....

which does lead me to ask the question, if the 6-core i7 extreme is still a $1000 CPU, how much in gods green earth is that 8-core going to cost?

Building new PC? Get Haswell.

Already have an i5/i7, i5/i7 Sandy, or i5/i7 Ivy? Don't bother. Put the money towards an SSD or better graphics card.

You could make the argument that it's worth upgrading one of the previous generation i5s or i7s, but only for audio editing or video editing. For gaming there's practically no difference between them all and for general usage (web browsing, yadayada) you won't find any either. So, I would buy Haswell if new, but don't upgrade if you have a previous gen.

To put things in perspective I'm still running one of the first generation i5s from 2009 clocked at 4Ghz, every game I play is either limited by my graphics card or the CPU performance is more than enough. (Total War, Civ V all run perfect) This machine is still handling everything I throw at it because games are heavily graphics card bound right now. Usually if you buy wise your CPU should last around 3+ years before they start to lag behind in games. (hey I'm coming up to 4!)

I'm on a first gen i7, and I really think at this point the performance benefit (even going to Ivy) is enough to warrant upgrading it over a better GPU. I'm pretty sure it's my CPU bottlenecking me in games like SC2 anyway.

Just look at these benchmarks: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel-core-i74770k-i54560k-tested/6